


Confessional

by splkespiegel



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: M/M, lots of self hate on pete's end in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3559754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splkespiegel/pseuds/splkespiegel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete had been up for about 28 hours, but he still couldn't sleep.<br/>A quick little fic that takes place directly after the events of S4E15, The Silent Partners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confessional

Pete had been up for about 28 hours, but he still couldn’t sleep. It was 6 in the morning, and he was lying in his bed, staring out the window, with Billy asleep on top of him.

He didn’t want to think about the last 3 days, when he was trapped in the panic room with Sergeant Hatred and Billy’s safety was the only thing on his mind. He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep, and he couldn’t even drink anything until Hatred forced some water down his throat.

That was behind him, and his prime objective in that moment was to breathe as slowly as possible to let Billy sleep.

The last 4 hours had been a bit of a confessional for the two of them – 3 days of fretting and worrying morphed into aimless chit-chat the moment they collapsed into bed. Well, it was a little more Pete babbling about whatever came to his mind first while Billy looked at him and nodded politely when needed. Things like that happened every now and then, usually when Pete was coming down from an anxiety attack.

This time was a bit different, though, and the only indicator of that was a single sentence.

Billy steeled himself and waited for a lull in Pete’s monologue before he let it out. “White, there’s some things we need to talk about.”

The moment those words left Billy's mouth, Pete fell into a shocked silence. In most of his experience, the words “we need to talk” were synonymous with “I’m about to leave you”, and he wasn’t sure what he would do without Billy. Scratch that, if it weren’t for Billy, he would’ve been dead years ago.

“About what, pally?” He forced out.

“Look, White, I have some problems with you. And I know you have problems with me. We need to stop avoiding it already.”

That wasn’t much better as far as Pete was concerned, and he assumed that Billy was just going to chew him out about what an awful friend he was. He was a little surprised when Billy led them into a conversation about what they could do better, what needed to stop, and so on. It was almost like a normal roommate conversation about who did the dishes on what days, but about every little thing they did together.

After a few points Billy had made, Pete got the gist of what was happening. This was a huge, blanket apology on both ends, and he was expected to, well, apologize.

Pete was about to bail on the whole thing with some shitty excuse about needing a smoke, but he knew that would only make things worse. It was high time they talked about everything that they needed to talk about before it destroyed both of them.

Now, with Billy asleep and some of their shared negativity dealt with, Pete did something that he’d never admit to – he played pretend.

Sometimes, when he was really feeling down and out, Pete managed to convince himself that if he said just the right things, made just the right little gestures of appreciation, he could fix everything. If he did everything just right, Billy would forgive him for all the shit he’d put him through and they could live like normal people in their run-down trailer in the desert backwater.

His game of pretend that morning was simple: if he held Billy tight enough, if he let him sleep in as late as he wanted, and he himself stayed awake and stared out the window at the rising sun, Billy would forgive him for ruining his life.


End file.
